1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to optical apparatus of particular, but not exclusive, application to routing pulsed optical signals.
2. Related Art
In time division multiplexed communication systems there is a need to perform operations on selected bits of data, which operations include removing and inserting bits in selected time slots from, and into, a received optical data stream. The present invention seeks to provide an optical routing device which can perform such operations in the optical regime, i.e., without the need to convert the data stream to an equivalent electrical data stream upon which the operations are performed.